, as being a part of his Grace's Government, was for the time
one with his Grace, to expatiate at length on the nobility of the
sacrifice here made. But they all knew there at what rate was valued
a seat in that House. Thank God that privilege could not now be
rated at any money price. It could not be bought and sold. But this
privilege which his noble friend had so magnanimously resigned from
purely patriotic motives, was, he believed, still in existence, and
he would ask those few who were still in the happy, or, perhaps, he
had better say in the envied, position of being able to send their
friends to that House, what was their estimation of the conduct of
the Duke in this matter? It might be that there were one or two such
present, and who now heard him,--or, perhaps, one or two who owed
their seats to the exercise of such a privilege. They might marvel at
the magnitude of the surrender. They might even question the sagacity
of the man who could abandon so much without a price. But he hardly
thought that even they would regard it as unconstitutional.

"This was what the Prime Minister had done,--acting not as Prime
Minister, but as an English nobleman, in the management of his own
property and privileges. And now he would come to the gist of the
accusation made; in making which, the thing which the Duke had really
done had been altogether ignored. When the vacancy had been declared
by the acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds by a gentleman whose
absence from the House they all regretted, the Duke had signified to
his agents his intention of retiring altogether from the exercise of
any privilege or power in the matter. But the Duke was then, as he
was also now, and would, it was to be hoped, long continue to be,
Prime Minister of England. He need hardly remind gentlemen in that
House that the Prime Minister was not in a position to devote his
undivided time to the management of his own property, or even to the
interests of the Borough of Silverbridge. That his Grace had been
earnest in his instructions to his agents, the sequel fully proved;
but that earnestness his agents had misinterpreted."

Then there was heard a voice in the House, "What agents?" and from
another voice, "Name them." For there were present some who thought
it to be shameful that the excitement of the occasion should be
lowered by keeping back all allusion to the Duchess.

"I have not distinguished," said Phineas, assuming an indignant tone,
"the